CISD to overhaul website, moves to WordPress

Stephen Green

Published 4:36 pm, Sunday, April 26, 2015

Conroe ISD will have a new website by next school year.

The CISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved a $350,000 overhaul of ConroeISD.net. It would include moving the site to the WordPress content management system, as well as a more modern redesign, according to Director of Communications Sarah Wood.

“This is a project we’ve been researching extensively since early fall,” Wood said. “As the district is growing rapidly, we will have a (larger) need to communicate effectively. The current website platform has served us well, but it’s time for an upgrade.”

The district currently uses an internally created web program, as well as FirstClass Rapid Web Designer through Open Text. WordPress has traditionally been used by bloggers as a free method of publishing, but recently more businesses have used it as their main web-publishing platform.

“WordPress is a platform that’s been around for a while in technology terms, (which means it has a) really rich store of plug-ins and extensions and themes,” Wood said. “… In going with a new software platform instead of internally designed one, it allows us to have website hosted externally using a company with locations across the United States.”

Currently, if a major electrical outage or physical damage were to blight the district’s servers, the website would go down. Because WordPress is a nationwide company, they have several servers that would prevent those problems.

Modern Tribe, a digital design agency, won the bid as the sole entrant. The total cost includes the redesign, district logo redesign work and social media integration, among other options. There is a $50,000 contingency fund built-in, as well as $80,000 for maintenance for two years after the initial site development.

The project will start with the district and district department pages before eventually working on each campus page.

Superintendent Dr. Don Stockton began final contract negotiations last week. Wood expects the website to be up and running by the start of the 2015-2016 school year.